


But I Wasn’t Alone

by biscuits_and_tea



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Let Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) Say Fuck, Naive Number Five, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Post-Apocalypse, mam made me watch castaway too much as a child, multi-chapter, young Number Five
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 19:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18630178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biscuits_and_tea/pseuds/biscuits_and_tea
Summary: Five conversations between The Boy and his mannequin, several years after the end of the world





	1. water/shock

He’s given up on looking for people by the time he finds Dolores.

What he’s looking for, desperately, is water.

There’s food to be found in relative abundance in the shattered remains of his city: squashed up tins in supermarket and household rubble, jars of peanut butter not too many years out of date and sometimes only a little cracked, the odd packet of powdered cake mix or casserole sauce that fills him up and dries out his tongue. He doesn’t think the apocalypse was a nuclear one (read: he hopes not), so radiation poisoning at least shouldn’t be an issue if he can find any body of water at all.

When he discovered the bodies of his siblings, though, he could do nothing but turn around and run as far away as possible, jumping through space just to get away from their corpses looking up at him all glassy-eyed and broken, accusing. Like if he had been there, he could have protected them. Stopped the owner of the false eye. Helped somehow.

Running is something he needs to learn to stop doing, because currently he’s completely lost. He could easily have found the river from the Academy, but here the world is unrecognisable from the one he knew just a couple of days before, and he’d never ventured far from the grounds of his home anyway. He pictures his glass of orange juice on the dining room table, still half empty when he'd had that stupid fight with stupid Dad who had been stupidly right. He wishes he’d gulped the last of it down. And why’d he waste all that water crying about his situation? _Idiot._

His head is starting to ache unbearably. He’s losing track of time, and he tries once again to punch his way into the past. Nothing. Again. _Nothing._ When was the last time he went to the bathroom? He has no idea, but it wasn’t good when he did. He collapses by a wall, trembling, trying to get some shade from the encroaching sun.

 _You’re not going to die of thirst. You’re a goddamn superhero! You’re not, not, not going to give up and die. You’re so much smarter than that so just_ think, _Number Five! Get up and walk and move and get up and move and move and-_

The boy gets to his feet with a whimper. Well, nobody is here to judge at least. Diego mutters in his head anyway, _snivelly little smartass._ He shoots back with “that’s rich coming from mommy’s boy _”_ , and almost teleports out of the way of his brother’s fist on reflex.

There’s a new concern itching in the corner of his mind that even if he does find water, he might go stark raving bonkers in the meantime with nobody to talk to.

_One thing at a time._

* * *

He’s been walking around in circles, he realises after a couple more hours. Despite pulling his blazer over his head to try and fend off heatstroke, the back of his neck and his hands have burnt and dehydrated him even more. He’s incredibly dizzy as he reaches the department store, some of which is still standing. The clothes have been worn to rags by the weather, he notes, but there might be a map in here, or abandoned water bottles in the break room, or…

_It’s absolutely hopeless._

When he first catches sight of her, he’s certain he saw her breathe in, her face move. He’d swear to it, in fact, on his sisters’ lives if-  
Well.

“Hello?” He rasps, tongue swollen. “Water? Please?”

She doesn’t answer, and he realises that she’s plastic, but he goes to sit beside her anyway. Here’s as good a place to die as any. He’s not alone.

The boy has just closed his eyes when something hits his stinging hand. Something wet, and cool. He opens his eyes again, and sees a tear rolling down the mannequin’s face. And another. And another and another and another and a crack of thunder echoes in the distance as Five whoops with delight, tilting back his head to drink as much as he can. It tastes terrible, but he couldn’t care less. He grabs the mannequin’s hand and swings her around and around, laughing and yelling as he stumbles his way out of the store.

_Maybe not one thing at a time. Maybe two birds with one stone._

“You’re my good luck charm, huh,” he tells her as he returns to his senses, the clockwork in his overheated brain finally able to click back into gear, rain plastering his clothes and hair to his skin. “But we need to find a way to catch this.” 

He thinks of items discarded along his route. A chipped mug on its side, still full of toothbrushes. A battered canteen he’d dropped when he got too weak to carry any more. A bucket that possibly wasn’t full of holes. Laying the mannequin gently on the floor, he promises to return as soon as possible. “If you’ll wait for me, okay?”

He takes her silence as affirmation.

“You got a name, by the way? Well, that’s kind of a stupid question, I guess. Me neither. Mom picked one out, but I didn’t like it, so I’m just Number Five. You can call me Five if you want once we get to know each other.” He suddenly feels awkward. “Yes, it probably is a bit soon to be talking to someone who can’t talk back, but I’ve been through a lot recently, so you oughta cut me some slack.”

More silence.

“I think I might go for Dolores. Yeah, that’s a good name. I think it fits you well.”

With that, he flickers off into the near distance. Dolores watches him vanish with an approving smile on her face. He’ll be back soon.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I want you all to know that I hummed “Be Back Soon” from Oliver for the whole of the last paragraph, which I wrote on a plane, so now people think I'm mad but that's fine)


	2. fire/denial

“...so, that’s when I told  _ her  _ to get off her high horse, but does she listen to me? Nope! You wouldn’t believe what Allison can be like when he gets in a state like that. She’s so bossy with her  _ I heard a rumour that you can’t win the race  _ this,  _ I heard a rumour you gave me your candy  _ that… But no, you don’t remind me of her. You remind me of my other sister. Vanya’s very quiet, just like you, and she always listens. She doesn’t try and fix your problem, you know? She hears you out.”

Dolores is patiently resting on a corner of Five’s tarp. The miraculous rainstorm has been on and off for over a week now, bringing with it the new fear of hypothermia, and the boy’s been trying to coax fire from steel and what he thinks is flint into the sticks and leaves he’s stacked in the bucket (which was, unfortunately, too full of holes to be of use). Dad had gone in for survival skills to an extent, and some of the Academy’s training had taken place out in the woods in the middle of the night while Vanya - to their enduring annoyance - got to stay warmly in bed. The games would vary: they might be trying to find their way home, or playing some form of tag, or five of them could be working in a team together to hunt the sixth. While Diego had been in his absolute element, and Klaus surprisingly had found the creepy woods peacefully devoid of the dead compared to inside, the others never particularly enjoyed these little escapades. 

“My brother Ben in particular hates the wide open dark, so he’s gotten really good at lighting fires. And one time Allison got Dad to buy her marshmallows, and Ben made these awesome s’mores, and Luther got all stressy because it wasn’t what we were supposed to be doing but then he ate the most anyway. I wish Ben was here right now to show me how to do this. I wish they were…”

He bites his lip.

“This is not working. You got any ideas? Yeah, I already raided the store for blankets and I’m still waking up like my feet are going to freeze. Yes, there might be some matches at the Academy, and no, I’m not going back there to find out. Well, we’ve tried all the homes on this side of the river, and I don’t want to cross too far… you’re right, yes, you’re always right. We’ll cross as soon as the rain dies off. Gotta find a bridge sometime anyway.”

Another clap of thunder echoes, and the tarp is once again threatened. Dolores slides gradually down as the weight of water above her grows.

“No, we can’t go to sleep! Damn it, can’t you stay focussed on the task at hand?”

Dolores, sideways, looks reproachful.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for snapping. I’m just sick of being wet and cold and it’s all right for you, because you don’t have skin. It won’t happen again.”

The two of them listen to the rain for a while longer.

“I think now might be the time for that tin of condensed milk. All that talking about s’mores. Of course I have a sweet tooth, I’m thirteen! Want any? No? Okay, suit yourself.”

* * *

“Dolores, will you take a look at this!” He’s triumphant as he excavates a child’s wooden cart from the remains of someone’s backyard. “It’ll be so much better than these plastic bags I’ve been tearing through. At last, my girl gets some proper wheels!”

One of the wheels is knocked badly askew, but he’s fairly certain he’ll be able to fix it with enough thought and a wrench. He may not have always excelled on the “get out of the woods” games, but he was the best of his siblings at puzzles and problems. And really, a bit of engineering is basically another puzzle to solve. For now, the cart will do. He sticks Dolores in there, along with a pile more cans and packets of non-perishables, and two new water receptacles. A decent day’s scavenging, all things considered. Still no matches or a lighter though, and the boy begins to dread another cold night without a fire. Not to mention, his rainwater won’t last forever and he’ll need to boil the river water for certain; he doesn’t trust himself not to just drink it if he ever gets that thirsty again.

“I’m not picking pockets to see if they have lighters, Dol. Especially not my siblings pockets. No, it’s… I can’t get that close again. I can’t go back there, okay? I can do this on my own. I’ve watched Ben and Luther make enough fires and they’re not that smart. It can’t be that hard…”

Out of habit, now, he tries to jump backwards in time. Nothing happens, as he expected.

“It’d be fine if the sun would come back out, then I could use a magnifying glass or a mirror… or I suppose any glass might have to work.” Before the torrent of rain, small wildfires seemed to dot the horrible landscape, but now he’s lucky to find the sign of anything smouldering. Typical that the solution to one problem caused another.

“I guess I could go to the library and see if any books on camp craft survived... It’s a bit of a long shot, I grant you. But worth a try? Yeah! Just you wait, I’ll be the best Boy Scout you could possibly imagine. Luther won’t know what’s coming when I get back!”

The rain that he’s now very, very fed up with begins again as he trundles back over the bridge to his campsite, trickling down the back of his neck. “I will get back, right, Dolores?”

She doesn’t have an answer.


End file.
